Pentecostal comes from the word Pentecost, the English word for one of the annual Holy Days outlined in the Bible in Leviticus 23. The word means "fiftieth," as the proper day for the observance is determined by counting fifty days from a Sabbath during the earlier Feast of Unleavened Bread. In Acts 2 in the New Testament, the disciples of Jesus were gathered together on this annual Holy Day in Jerusalem when they first received the empowerment of the Holy Spirit after Jesus' resurrection. The most noticeable feature of this occasion was that each of the disciples "spoke with other tongues," and those in the audience, who were from many other nations, were surprised to hear them speak in their own native languages.
The term Pentecostal, when applied to religious groups, teachers, or customs, usually implies that the participants believe that all Christians should expect to experience the same empowerment of the Holy Spirit, particularly evidenced by the gift of
speaking in tongues. Many Pentecostals believe this empowerment to happen at a time separate from conversion or water baptism.
Pentecostal and
Charismatic are sometimes used interchangeably to designate the same groups, teachers, and phenomena. However, most students of religious history tend to use the term Pentecostal to refer to the more old fashioned, unsophisticated groups that developed out of a Holy Spirit movement that began around 1900 AD. And they use the term Charismatic to refer to a more contemporary, sophisticated branch of this general belief system that has developed since the 1950s.
